Eternity Ring: A Miss Silver Mystery

Rating:
Summary: The eternity earrings case
Review: Frank Abbott, that scion of the English gentry who was cut out of his grandmother's will when he joined the police force, has for years sat at his esteemed preceptress' feet: those of Maud Silver, governess-turned-private investigator. In the current instance, his own family is involved - not just one of the regiment of cousins scattered up and down the country, but his cousin Cecily, whose father is the closest thing Frank has to his own late father.

Before anyone gets the wrong impression, Cecily is already married, although she separated from her husband Grant a few months after the wedding and won't say why. The reader and Grant have an extra piece of information - she's convinced he married her for her money - but we, at least, don't know why. Cecily, as the only member of the family with whom old Lady Evelyn Abbott *didn't* quarrel, seems to be the unlucky one. Money hasn't brought her happiness, especially given the other part of her inheritance - the old lady's belief that everyone close to you will eventually turn out to be after your money.

In the end - or rather, the beginning - it isn't Cecily who's murdered, and the motive doesn't seem to be money - not directly. Mary Stokes, a not-so-nice-girl, doesn't seem to be lying when she says she found a corpse in the woods wearing eternity earrings, but the cops can't find it. Most likely, it ties up with the disappearance of Louise Rogers, a penniless refugee in these post-WWII days, who was looking for the British soldier who stole everything she had during the war. If she found him, there aren't many suspects that she could have met...

We are given a much better insight into Abbott's character and background: why he joined the police force instead of reading law, and why he has such a wide sardonic streak. (Ironically enough, he even looks like Lady Evelyn.)

Rating:
Summary: Not my favourite Miss Silver mystery.
Review: This wasn't the best Miss Silver mystery that I've read. First of all we hardly see Miss Silver at all, and she isn't the one who actually solves this case. A lot of the action takes place without her presence. Since I read Miss Silver to see her sharp mind in action, that was a disappointment. Also, the mystery wasn't too hard to figure out, so maybe they didn't need Miss Silver's razor-sharp intelligence for this one. It starts with a village woman seeing a man dragging what was obviously a dead woman's body in the night, but there was no body to find afterwards, so no one really believed her until she turns up dead too. Frank and Miss Silver set out to find the first woman's body. As in all Miss Silver books there is a love interest, but this has a bit of a twist since it involves a separated married couple. A bit disappointing, this one.